Monday, March 30, 2026

Dallas Fed Manufacturing … Momentum Trading DOW Stocks & ETFs … Stock Market Analysis

 
 
“Trade what you see; not what you think.” – The Old Fool, Richard McCranie, trader extraordinaire.
 
“Far more money has been lost by investors in preparing for corrections, or anticipating corrections, than has been lost in the corrections themselves.” - Peter Lynch, former manager of Fidelity’s Magellan® fund.
   
"This is maybe the most dangerous market of my career, and that includes 1987's crash, that includes the savings and loan debacle market of the early '90s, that includes the 1999 to 2009 lost decade in the S&P 500 in the dot-com bubble. This is the most difficult market of my 45 years." -  Bill Smead, Smead Value Fund (SMVLX), May 2025.”
 
THE CORRECTION BOTTOM IS CLOSER THAN YOU THINK (Barrons)
“Valuations suggest an end may be near. The S&P 500 trades at just under 20 times 12 month forward earnings, down 12% from just over 22 at the end of 2025. Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley’s chief U.S. equity strategist, notes that the decline is “as significant” as the ones that occurred in 2015 and 2023. At the same time, expected earnings growth for the next 12 months has accelerated to 17%. When the two trends have occurred simultaneously in the past, the S&P 500 has gone on to gain a median 10% over the following six months, above the long-term average of 5%, Wilson’s data show.
“We remain convicted that this is a correction in a bull market that started last April from the depths of a rolling recession,” he writes. “Our work suggests the correction is well advanced not only in time but price.” Story at…
Not everyone agrees…
 
BIGGEST CRASH IN HISTORY ABOUT TO HIT (Moneywise)
“In 2013 I [Robert Kiyosaki] published RICH DADs PROPHECY predicting the biggest crash in history was coming. Unfortunately, that crash has arrived. It’s not just the US. Europe and Asia are crashing. AI will wipe out jobs and when jobs crash office and residential real estate crashes.”
At first glance, his warning may seem at odds with the U.S. stock market, where the S&P 500 and Nasdaq remain strong. Yet, the broader economic concerns and layoffs continue to dominate headlines…So how would Kiyosaki prepare? “Time to buy more gold, silver, bitcoin and Ethereum.” Story at…
My cmt: A big crash may be coming, but indicators aren’t suggesting it yet.
 
TIME TO BUY
“Some of the highest quality businesses in the world are trading at extremely cheap prices… One of the best times in a long time to buy quality. Ignore the bears.” – Bil Ackman, CEO, Pershing Square Capital Management. From…
 
DALLAS FED MANUFACTURING (Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas)
“Texas factory activity continued to rise in March, but at a slower pace than the previous month, according to business executives responding to the Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey. The production index, a key measure of state manufacturing conditions, fell six points to 6.8, a reading suggestive of a below-average pace of output expansion.” From…
 
QUICK MARKET SUMMARY
-Monday the S&P 500 declined about 0.4% to 6344.
-VIX declined about 2% to 30.28.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined to 4.350% (compared to about this time prior market day).
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS
SPY – Added 12/1/2025.
NVDA – Added 12/1/2025 & 2/6/2026
“Despite all the bearish noise, Goldman Sachs isn’t backing down on Nvidia (NVDA) stock yet. After another stellar GTC showing, the bank reiterated its $250 price target and maintained a buy rating, underscoring confidence in the AI giant’s tremendous upside from current levels.” Story at…  
 
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
At the close today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 23 gave Bear-signs and 6 were Bullish. The rest are neutral. (It is normal to have a lot of neutral indicators since many of the indicators are top or bottom indicators that will signal only at extremes.)
 
TODAY’S COMMENT
S&P 500 drop from the Top: 9.1%
S&P 500 % above 200-dMA: -4.4%
Trading Days since top: 53. (Avg top to bottom for corrections less than 10% = 32 days, but the 10% correction in Sept of 2023 lasted 64-days top to bottom.)
 
The daily, bull-bear spread of 50-indicators declined from -12 to -17 (17 more Bear indicators than Bull indicators), a BEARISH indication. I consider +5 to -5 the neutral zone. The 10-dMA curve of the spread (purple on the chart above) that smooths daily fluctuations reversed lower – a BEARISH indication. That’s disappointing!
 
There were bullish signs Monday:
-Monday there was High-unchanged-volume. Some think that unchanged volume is a sign of a market reversal, in this case higher. This is not one of my indicators since it is often wrong.
-Only 6-days have been up in the last month.  That level of bearish action is bullish.
-Both Bollinger Bands and RSI were oversold Monday. This can sometimes be a good bottom signal, but our main way to identify bottoms looks at volume and internals.  Volume picked up Monday suggesting more selling ahead.
 
We did get a weak bottom signal Thursday. That still could be a good signal, but weak bottom signals can be early. In March of 2025 a weak, buy-signal was followed by a 4% drop before there was a final bottom. In that 10% correction, we did not see another buy-signal at the final bottom, so it’s possible we won’t see another bottom-call this time.
 
This is a news driven decline, so technicals help, but may not give us the answers we’d like.
 
BOTTOM LINE
I am still optimistic that a bottom is not far away. We’ll see.  Maybe we’ll see a “Turning Tuesday” tomorrow. I discussed this under the Paragraph “Bottom Signals” in Jeffrey Saut’s comment at…
 
ETF - MOMENTUM ANALYSIS:
TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily) ETF ranking follows:
 
The top ranked ETF receives 100%. The rest are then ranked based on their momentum relative to the leading ETF.
*For additional background on the ETF ranking system see NTSM Page at…
DOW STOCKS - TODAY’S MOMENTUM RANKING OF THE DOW 30 STOCKS (Ranked Daily)
 
The top ranked Stock receives 100%. The rest are then ranked based on their momentum relative to the leading Stock.
For more details, see NTSM Page at…
MONDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)
My basket of Market Internals declined to SELL. (My basket of Market Internals is a decent trend-following analysis that is most useful when it diverges from the Index.) 
 
 
 
My invested position is about 55% stocks, including stock mutual funds and ETFs. 50% invested in stocks is a normal, conservative position for a retiree. (80% is my max stock allocation when I am confident that markets will continue higher; 30% in stocks is my Bear market position.)
                                              
I trade about 15-20% of the total portfolio using the momentum-based analysis I provide here although I don’t trade as much as I used to. When I see bullish signs, I add a lot more stocks to the portfolio, usually by using an S&P 500 ETF as I did back in October 2022 and 2023.
 
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